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I am a big fan of essential oils and have found them very helpful in many areas of health and wellness for me and my family.

With that said, it’s important to know that the term “therapeutic grade”, when it comes to essential oils, sounds technical, official, and impressive, as if it were an industry-recognized certification reserved only for the highest-quality essential oils.

The problem is that the term “therapeutic grade” and another like it, “CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade,” are nothing but marketing ploys. They were made-up by essential oil companies to help sell their own products.

Differentiating one product from another is a critical aspect of marketing. However, there are times when this differentiation is a “certification” fabricated in an attempt to elevate a product as the market’s “gold standard.” This was the tactic used in 2007 to create the term “therapeutic grade.”

Prior to 2007, the term “therapeutic grade” did not exist in the essential oil market. This term is not an independent or third party endorsement of purity and quality, but a trademarked marketing term created by a company selling essential oils. This 2007 creation spurred a greater fallacy, the term “CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade.” Again, this term sounds technical, implying the product has been “certified” to be pure and of therapeutic grade. But, like its predecessor, it is nothing more than a made up, trademarked phrase.

What’s more, these fabricated terms are defined by the very companies who invented them. Where there should be consistency, “therapeutic grade” seems to have different definitions. For example, some sources list as many as seven tests to determine “therapeutic grade,” while other sources list only two tests for the same “certification.”

Currently, there is no governing body that certifies essential oil quality and production, or designates a standardized grading system for essential oils. Making up terms like “therapeutic grade” and “CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade” implies that there is such a controlling entity.

In fact, I would suggest that this practice is deceitful and unethical as these terms have no real certification or quality value. They are complete myths.

That being said, in the absence of a central governing body, I would recommend that we rely on two entities that provide reputable quality specifications for many essential oils: the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

There are other terms used to describe the quality of some essential oils. These terms include “medicinal grade” and “aromatherapy grade.” Again, they do not have any actual certification value.

Until there is a government agency or other official body that certifies or “grades” essential oils, the best and easiest way to determine the purity of any oil is to look at the label on the bottle. Look for PURITY. Why use anything less than 100% pure. You should also look to ensure that each oil is certified NOT to contain any impurities or synthetic ingredients.

The other thing to keep in mind when it comes to essential oils, is that purity and quality are two different things. Just because something is pure doesn’t mean it is high quality. Look at it this way: How would you like a glass of 100% pure orange juice…squeezed from unripe, sour oranges?

You should also ensure that the oils are also rigorously tested to meet stringent quality specifications. They should undergo a battery of tests to ensure they are always the highest quality available:

• Chirality testing

• Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) testing

• Heavy metal/pesticide/herbicide testing

• Microbial testing

• Optical rotation and refractive index testing

• Organoleptic testing

• Specific gravity testing

In addition, the oils should be harvested through ethical and sustainable practices and traceable to its botanical plant source.
I hope you found this helpful and if you are interested in learning about where I shop for my essential oils feel free to contact me any time!

Often people see the success of others and think, “They are just lucky.” Obviously, the stone cutter didn’t break the rock through the shear strength of one hit, and you don’t reach a level of excellence through ‘luck’ without continuous due diligence and perseverance.

As one of my good friends says…
The harder I work, the luckier I get!!

Testing of herbal supplements sold by major retailers including Target and Walmart revealed that 79 percent have no trace of the herbs on the products’ labels, according to an investigation by the New York State Attorney General.

The testing led Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman to send letters to GNC, Target, Walmart and Walgreens to halt the sale of their store brand herbal supplements including Echinacea, Ginseng, and St. John’s Wort. Walmart’s products fared worst in the testing, the attorney general said, with only 4 percent containing DNA of the herbs on the product labels.

After graduating Valedictorian from the University of Houston in 2008 with a degree in Kinesiology Exercise Science and a minor in Nutrition, Crystal began working as a research scientist in the Neuroscience Lab at NASA Johnson Space Center.

In addition to loving her job at NASA and the contributions she is making to the study and advancements of space exploration, Crystal is passionate about health and wellness, motivating and inspiring others and empowering people to create a life for themselves that enables them to realize their dreams.

Shortly after getting married in 2009, Crystal and her husband Tom started a family. They now have a 4 and a half year old daughter named Channing and a 2 year old son named Carter.

I’ve learned a lot since I started working from home and trying to build my business into something that actually had results.

The first hard lesson I learned: figuring out how to get people. I would talk to someone and spend the whole time thinking, how can I get this person to join my team, how do I convince them Continue reading →